Busy week for the Little V’s. We’ve engulfed the concept of adapting and how certain traits allow living things to survive depending on the conditions they live in. By doing this the young scientists created their own fictional bird, incorporating a style of beak, wings, feet, legs, and color that would suite the needs of their environment. The outline and artwork is complete and will be displayed in the class. We’re going to tie in some augmented reality tech to this project (which is like virtual reality). Maybe we could have a gallery night, let me look into that.

This week we also learned about how rough it is to be a sea turtle and the measures they must take to survive. Students role played in this game of tag as land and sea predators were out to get those selected as the sea turtles. Turtles had to complete three rounds in the obstacle course, grabbing a food/life token each time. However, due to the effects humans play on the environment some of those tokens (unbeknownst to the turtles) were microplastics. When turtles consume these they either choke or disrupt their buoyancy making it difficult if not impossible to dive for food or away from predators.

Then we revisited how estuaries play a vital role in our ecosystem and local communities. The Aquaculture Technology Department at the Carteret Community College was more than radical to allow us to borrow some tanks, a few gallons of salt water, filters, plankton, and oysters to demo how these mother earth britta’s filter. Science fact: one oyster can filter 50 gallons of water a day. And I thought I drank alot (of water. Water folks. I drink alot of water). This was definitely a hit. We loaded one tank with ten oysters, the other with fifty five, poured in the plankton and sat back to observe. It was amazing to see how fast they cleared the tanks of the murky plankton paste. Above are the scientists pantomiming detritus predators. Can you guess which one is a fiddler crab, egret, raccoon, or red drum?

These young minds had indepth observational insight in their journaling today. Impressed with their outlook on today’s activity. So what’s next? Tons. Literally. We’ll be “swimming” with whales by the end of October. Stay tuned.